![]() ![]() ![]() Although it was only fractionally longer than the contemporary Volkswagen Beetle, Time said the length of its hood over the front-mounted engine made “the difference seem considerably more”, adding that the car “resembles a sawed-off station wagon, with a long, low hood and swept-up rear, and is faintly reminiscent of the original Studebaker Avanti.” As with the Volkswagen, the Gremlin's styling set it apart from other cars. It has been picked over thoroughly, but a few bits remain for Colorado AMC enthusiasts to buy.From the front of the car to the B-pillars, the Gremlin was essentially the same as the AMC Hornet. This car has the six, as do most Gremlins of the post- Oil-Crisis period. Gremlin shoppers had the choice of the base 232-cubic-inch (3.8-liter) straight-six (the descendant of which went on to power Jeep Cherokees into our current century) or a 304-cubic-inch (5.0-liter) V8. The harsh High Plains climate and a windowless car have given this upholstery some rough handling, but you can still make out the denim-ness here. The Levi's Gremlin got upholstery made from synthetic materials that looked a lot like real denim (apparently cotton is too flammable for use in car interiors), complete with stitching, Levi's tags, and copper rivets. ![]() The Jeans Beetle was pretty cut-rate next to the Levi's Edition Gremlin, however, and we're sure the shame over this contrast in quality lingers in Wolfsburg to this day. Around this time, Volkswagen released a Jeans Edition Beetle for the European market, featuring upholstery in a blue color not too dissimilar to that of faded denim trousers. ![]() If the sporty Javelin got the Cardin treatment and the stylish Matador an Oleg Cassini makeover, then it seemed to make sense - in Wisconsin, at any rate - to put jeans on the everyman Gremlin compact. Levi's jeans were ultra-fashionable during the middle 1970s, along with golden-razor-blade medallions tangled in one's chest hair and cryptic references to the Pompatus of Love in pop music. Those guys proceeded to freeze their fingers capturing some Willys hardware, while I wandered over to the American Motors section and found a pair of picked-over-but-still-recognizable classic Gremlins among the Ramblers and Eagles. I went there because I wanted to shoot some photographs with ancient film cameras while my artist friends Paul Heaston and Clyde Steadman sketched and painted. I found this car at Speedway Auto Wrecking in Dacono, a family-owned yard with an impressive selection of Detroit (and Kenosha) iron from the 1950s through 1980s. Cardin by sharing a designer-edition cousin of that car: a 1974 AMC Gremlin Levi's Edition, found in an old-school Colorado yard located between Denver and Cheyenne. While I've managed to find a discarded Oleg Cassini Edition AMC Matador and even a Matador Barcelona during my junkyard explorations, the Cardin Javelin has managed to elude my camera so far. Famed designer Pierre Cardin died just as 2020 was coming to a close, and we in the automotive universe knew him best for one towering achievement: the wild interior of the 1972-1973 Pierre Cardin Edition AMC Javelin. ![]()
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